She began working on deciphering the Indus script, but the project she assembled was cut short by her death from heart failure in 1996.

de Cardi invited During Caspers to join her small team as they attempted to relocate and re-excavate sites discovered by Aurel Stein in the 1930s.

The team encountered outbreaks of both cholera and typhoid fever, and were stranded by car failures or fear of wolves on multiple occasions.

Just before she left the country, an Armenian workman who had become enamoured of During Caspers proposed to her, and had to be restrained from breaking down her hotel room door when she declined.

Despite this "somewhat inconsiderate introduction to expedition life",[6] During Caspers returned to Iran in 1970, joining C. C. Lamberg-Karlovsky's excavations at Tepe Yahya.